Outside groups spent $213M in Oct.

It’s enough to buy every resident of Flint, Mich., or Green Bay, Wis., a high-end LED flat screen television.

Story Continued Below

It’s also how much the nation’s outside political groups have spent from Oct. 1 through Tuesday to flood the airwaves, fill mailboxes, burn up the phones and otherwise directly advocate for or against federal political candidates as Election Day nears, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal campaign spending disclosures.

During the same time frame in August, outside political groups together spent just a fraction of that — $60.6 million, federal records show.

The nation’s most powerful conservative political groups accounted for the vast majority of October spending, with the Karl Rove-backed super PAC American Crossroads, its nonprofit sister organization Crossroads GPS and pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future combining to spend more than $50 million.

Twenty-nine organizations, the majority of which are identifiably conservative, spent at least $1 million from Oct. 1 through Oct. 15 directly advocating for or against federal candidates, records show. During the second half of September, only 24 cracked the seven-figure spending threshold.

Overall during this time, outside political groups such as super PACs and politically active nonprofit groups made nearly $213 million worth of what are known as independent expenditures — typically, ads or other mass communications that overtly support or oppose federal political candidates.

Among those spending the most:

1) American Crossroads, $23.35 million, mostly in support of Romney and in opposition to Obama and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).

5) Service Employees International Union committees, $8.23 million, mostly in support of Obama, Berkley, Kaine and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and against various Republican candidates, including Senate candidate George Allen (Va.) and Reps. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio) and Daniel Webster (R-Fla.).